


Fuel & Fire

by Jade_Waters



Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Joining the Darkside, M/M, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Waters/pseuds/Jade_Waters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were friends, once. Dinobot remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fuel & Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this fic back in 2007 on a different archive and later erased that profile, but I still like this fic so I'm reposting.

They were friends, once. 

Dinobot was perhaps the only one Megatron ever sincerely gave that title to, the only one he ever viewed as equal.  Back on Cybertron, Dinobot had been a bored and restless bot in a long line of bored and restless bots, all ex-Decepticon nobility eager for battle but finding none.  For his family, the Great War _was_ the Golden Age.  Since the end of the war, each of Dinobot’s ancestors felt so… purposeless.  They were warriors to the spark, but how does a warrior reach Silicon Valhalla if there is no war to fight?  Dinobot could find no answer to his question, but he was a promising young bot, with “intelligence and strong convictions” (so his teacher-bots said).  And so (on their recommendation) he attended the University of Cybertron in hopes of finding a purpose for himself. 

Megatron was always more interested in power than glory, but when he met Dinobot at the University, he came to understand that the two could fit together nicely.  Megatron's ideas were always radical, but they hadn't been quite so egocentric back then: Predacons were oppressed by those hypocrite Maximals, he'd told Dinobot, not allowed to be what they were programmed – sparked! – to be.  Dinobot heard the ambition in his voice like hot oil over old hinges, and together they had plotted and schemed.  

Little came of those late nights spent talking power and politics over cubes of energon except for their friendship and a few dreams Dinobot never thought could be anything more than sparks of pleasure in his otherwise dull life.  At first, Megatron talked with Dinobot because he listened, then because he offered intelligent conversation.  In the end, however, Megatron shared his ideas and stories with Dinobot because he loved to see the lust that came into Dinobot's eyes whenever he talked of battle and ambition and glory and adventure.  He spun his plans out for as long as he could, made them as grand as he could imagine, so that he could enjoy that look for an extra megacycle or two.

*  
      
After they graduated from the University, they went their separate ways.  Dinobot had majored in military history with a concentration in battle strategy, hoping to pursue a career in criminal justice.  But there was little crime on Cybertron in those days, and even if they had needed him, many employers took one look at his background and turned him down.  Decepticons and Predacons were _supposed_ to be treated as equals; there weren’t even supposed to be alignments anymore.  But idealized visions are very rarely realized, and nobody wanted to risk a Predacon on a police force – too ambitious, not trustworthy, dangerous… The list went on.  Dinobot had hoped, prayed, that someone would hire him, give him a chance to _do_ something, but the more he got turned away, the more he started to think maybe Megatron had a point, after all.    
        
But Megatron had all but disappeared after he’d graduated with his political science degree.  Everyone in their class had been sure Megatron would go on to be a great politician, charismatic and ambitious as he was.  But within months of graduation, it was like he’d never even existed.  Nobody knew where he’d gone or what he was doing.  Dinobot had considered being worried, but it occurred to him that it was entirely in Megatron’s nature to do the unexpected.  So, eventually, Dinobot settled into a mundane career processing bureaucratic documents.  Nobody was worried about a bot being too ambitious about paperwork.

* 

A decade later, Dinobot had forgotten about his university years.  He’d forgotten about Megatron and his crazy schemes.  He spent his days fighting his way up the ladder, putting every ounce of ambition he had into getting a promotion.  He spent his nights wondering why he even bothered.  He’d found the answer to his old question: for a warrior without war, there is no Valhalla.  There is nothing.  Only dreams, and eventually even those crumbled to dust.  
       
And that was when Megatron showed up, unexpected, on Dinobot's doorstep.  "My dear old friend," he'd said into the intercom, "I've come to share some news, yes."  Dinobot, surprised but eager to talk with one of the few bots who'd ever interested him, opened the door.              
There was an awkward moment or two before the drinks were ready and the two bots just stood, waiting – one for the news and the other for the right moment.  But then Megatron opened with a joke about that rather creaky biomechanics professor they'd once had, and it was just like old times, sharing memories of more mischievous days.  Around the third round of energon, the conversation slipped into military history and what they could remember from their old classes.  It was then that Megatron said what he had come to say: he had a new plan.        
Dinobot smiled nostalgically, not ready for another impossible dream that would only disappoint him when it crumbled, and said something like "We're getting too old for your plans." And then Megatron smiled that wolfish smile – the one that was so full of ambition, so ready to take whatever slag the universe thought it could dish out – and he told Dinobot about the Golden Disk, told him about the Predacons he'd found who were already willing to work for him, about the ship they were going to steal, about the Tripredacus Council, about how they could usurp the whole of Cybertron and begin a new world order.  And he'd watched as Dinobot resisted, then grew interested. He watched how his friend leaned forward a little, how he regained that vitality, that lust, that made him glorious in Megatron's eyes, that made Megatron believe in his own words. 

When Megatron had finished telling his plans, Dinobot blinked a couple times and then slumped back.  It was too much.  He wanted it to be real, yet years of dreams never realized told him this one could be no different.  He rubbed his hand over his eyes, weary.  "Why do you tell me all of this?" 

"I need you with me," was the ready reply.  Dinobot always gave Megatron that extra inch of will, just enough to actually act.  The potential, maybe, that he saw in Dinobot, and his desire to see that potential realized, was enough.  And so he said again, "I can only do it with you as my second-in-command."  Back then, back on Cybertron, it was always "we, "for us," and "with your help." Back then, Megatron needed only for his friend to believe with him, and that was enough.                
"We will never succeed," was Dinobot's response, fighting his own desire to be swept up in Megatron’s grand plans. 

And there was Megatron's smile again, the one that made Dinobot think that maybe the things they talked about were possible after all, that maybe they could change something in this static world.  "My friend, when has that ever stopped a warrior from going into battle?  We have the chance to do more than simply _exist_ as second class citizens to these Maximals.  We have the chance to change the course of history!  And you are willing to pass that up?" 

Dinobot leaned forward again, wanting, so _needing_ , to believe.  Megatron was right – if they were successful, their path would be glorious.  It was a coward's choice to sit, a coward's choice to do nothing!  What had this Maximal world done to him?  Even if they met with failure, it was time he did as he was meant to do and take action.  Megatron watched as his friend's answer changed from no to yes, felt his own excitement and confidence grow with Dinobot's, and when Dinobot lifted his gaze to meet Megatron's, their smiles matched, predatory, adventurous, and alive.  

-End-  


End file.
